Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Fast Eagle





I got a call last Thursday from the long-time editor of the Scottsbluff Star-Herald newspaper, Steve Frederick. Steve nearly retired recently but decided to stay on to visit with, write about and photograph the things he enjoys, including people of the Panhandle and much of the natural history of the region.

For some reason Steve wanted to do a story on the ranch, and I was happy to answer some questions and show him around.

Here's a link to the story:

It was time well spent and I enjoyed the outing. I got some nice local comments too, and those are always appreciated.

One big bonus was a blog comment and an email from a fellow who I served with back in the glory days. I was surprised to find that a CVW-8 alumnus lives just down (well, up) the road a piece. Shouldn't have been surprised, I guess. Everyone knows that the best sailors were all raised at least 1,000 miles from the sea!

So here's to you, Devin, a little wikimedia commons Fast Eagle action from Desert Storm. Those were the days!







And some Victory and Fast Eagle love from "slightly before" DS.


5 comments:

  1. Superb write up. You're a bit of a local celebrity, well earned I'd say.

    Loved reading about the ranch's history.

    As always, great stuff Shaun!

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  2. Thanks Sarge. Steve is pretty good at teasing a few details into an enjoyable read.

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  3. Boy....Talk about Click Bait! I was ALL over a link to Fast Eagles! What's with the pictures of Tom Kitties?

    Seriously though, Good Article!

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    1. Thanks Juvat. There's an entire series of deeply interesting (?) posts to be written regarding navy callsigns. Victory (VF-84) and Fast Eagle (VF-41) were the CVW-8 fighter squadron callsigns BITD. The other squadrons were Sidewinder, Streetcar, Raygun, Bear Ace, Rampage, Jaguar, and Scout. A-7, A-7, A-6, E-2, EA-6, H-3, S-3. Interestingly, Barrett Tillman notes that there are (or were in 2010) about 20 "Viper" callsigns across the US military, half of which belong to F-16 units.

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